An explosion yesterday ripped through a subway car in the Moscow metro during morning rush hour, killing at least 39 people, wounding dozens of others and sending clouds of smoke through the tunnel in what authorities said was a terrorist act.
A severe fire broke out after the blast, and passengers were being evacuated from a station hundreds of meters from the damaged train, said Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. However, other officials said there was no fire.
About 39 people were killed, said Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin. The emergencies ministry said hundreds were injured.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Moscow police spokesman Kirill Mazurin said the bombing was being investigated as an act of terrorism -- the latest in a series of attacks that have plagued Russia -- and the Interfax news agency, citing unnamed police sources, said the attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber. Deputy Mayor Valery Shantsev said the bomb was hidden in a knapsack or a suitcase.
There were no claims of responsibility.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to the international community to boost its efforts in the fight against terrorism, which he called "this plague of the 21st century."
Ambulances crowded outside the entrance to the Avtozavodskaya station, southeast of downtown Moscow. Rescue workers carrying empty stretchers or wearing equipment on their back rushed down the stairs into the station, and television networks showed footage of rescuers carrying a motionless body out on a stretcher. The injured were being sent to three Moscow hospitals.
The explosion occurred in the second car of a subway train after it had pulled about 500m from the Avtozavodskaya station and headed northwest to Paveletskaya station on the city's busy circle line, Mazurin told NTV television.
He told Rossiya television that after the explosion, the train traveled for about another 500m before coming to a stop.
The line that the explosion occurred on is one of Moscow's deepest.
Russia's Echo of Moscow radio, citing emergency workers, said that more than 150 people suffered from injuries including broken bones, smoke inhalation and burns.
"I heard a loud sound like a petard and smoke filled the car," said Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was on the train's next-to-last car -- several cars away from the blast. "Now that there are explosions on the metro, what are our country and government and police going to do when they blow up crowded subway cars?''
An unidentified woman, blood covering her face, told NTV television that for a long time after the explosion, passengers were unable to open the door of the subway car.
After finally prying open the door, she said they walked two to three kilometers out of the tunnel.
More than 700 people were evacuated, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing metro staff.
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